1001 Reasons Why Stags are Better Than Dogs
by LilyPotter
Summary: A companion piece to Tropical Fishy's "1001 reasons why dogs are better than stags." It's a James rambling piece, trying to prove to Sirius exactly what the title says.


A/N: This is a writer's block story. It came to me as I was reading Tropical   
Fishy's "1001 ways that dogs are better than stags." So I decided to do a   
companion piece. I would suggest that you read hers first, but if you really   
don't want to, this can go on it's own.  
  
1001 Reasons Why Stags are Better Than Dogs  
by Lily Potter  
  
My best friend, Sirius Black, is completely, totally, and absolutely bonkers. You would think, that after getting kicked out of six various pubs he would learn that he just can't go out in public. But Sirius is not the   
brightest guy in the history of the world, either.  
  
Oh sure, he does fine in school, when he's not in detention, and he can read and write and stuff…but where common sense comes into play…well, you might say that he's a few bricks short of a full load, if you know what I mean.  
  
For one thing, he thinks he's stronger than I am. Even after I beat him three times in arm wrestling. He also thinks he's an incredibly sneaky, suspicious character, who can get away with more things than James Bond. May I mention that he is currently winning the award for most detentions ever received? How sneaky can you be if you get caught all the time? (I am in a close second, and will be catching up quite soon, though, so don't hold your breath.)  
  
For another, he thinks that _dogs_, dogs, carnivorous slobbery _dogs_, are better than stags. I'm sure I need not tell you that he is very much mistaken. He also tried to kidnap my girlfriend to prove it.  
  
Like I said, Sirius is a few chips short of a fish meal in the common sense department, so he really believes that I didn't see it coming.  
  
You couldn't miss it. It was like watching a thirty metre tall Mack-truck coming at you from two metres away. And he had mangled it as badly as if that same thirty metre tall Mack-truck hit several small cars and a telephone wire as it was attempting to turn left.  
  
Finally, he just gave up on the idea, told me that I was a menace to society, and we played a friendly game of chess.  
  
This is all very well and good. My girlfriend was not kidnapped, and being a menace to society cannot be that bad. After all, Sirius has been a professional one for years. There was just one slight problem, before we get on to the cheesy sappy endings.  
  
Sirius has not yet been disillusioned of that painfully false sentiment. In short, that dogs are better than stags. Dogs are very nice creatures; I have nothing against them really. But they are slobbery and overly sentimental, and always want attention, even when you don't want to give it, and need to be the centre of attention, or else they whine, and sometimes they whine anyway, and they bark, and they chew, and shed all over the furniture, and the fur gets on your clothes and in your shoes and hair. If Sirius is not disillusioned of this notion soon, disaster is imminent.  
  
Well, not exactly imminent. But it is very likely that pretty soon many people will have dogs. Sirius can be very persuasive that way, he just smiles and the girls fall all over themselves. So if he tells them to get a dog, they will. And then there will be a very hairy, very angry, James Potter. And then I'll have to do something very drastic to Sirius, which   
will probably lead to mass suicides among the sixth year girls.  
  
In other words, disaster will strike, eventually. And it is left, as always, to James Potter, who will, of course, save the day.  
  
I always do, you know.  
  
Well, maybe not always. Most of time.  
  
Well, maybe not most of the time either.  
  
I have been known, on occasion, to save the day.  
  
Ok, maybe I've never actually saved the day. But I came close enough to it when I gave Snape that bottle of shampoo. His head would have been especially disgusting, otherwise.  
  
Well, I figured out how to make him believe that stags are better than dogs. I couldn't exactly kidnap his girlfriend; I am more inventive than that. Besides, Sirius has loads of girlfriends, and if one was gone he wouldn't notice. He'd just go find another one. But maybe if I could get his girlfriends to stay away from him…  
  
I'm so brilliant sometimes, that I scare myself.  
  
I would simply cover his robe in dog hair. No one likes when their clothes are covered in dog hair. Girls always hate that sort of thing, when someone is trying to chat them up and they're covered in animal fur.  
  
It is brilliant, really; simple, to the point, nothing fancy. Just coat his robes in dog hair and let the girls do the rest of the work. The problem is, I don't have the foggiest idea as to where I might get the dog hair. It's not like I could just shave a dog. Plus, the only dog I know is the Padfoot himself, and I think he would notice if I suddenly shaved all of his fur off   
while he was in dog form.  
  
Or would he?  
  
Sirius really can be incredibly dense sometimes. If you hang a pastry from the ceiling and have him look at it, you could dress him in drag and tango with him, and he wouldn't know the difference.  
  
I decided to put my plan into action right away. Unlike Sirius, I am very sneaky and subtle. It's the only reason why I have less detentions than he does. Plus, I can lie a lot better. Sirius can't lie for fish and chips. It's really quite astonishing to watch how surprised he is that the professor didn't believe him.  
  
But anyway, in the morning, before we went down to breakfast, I pulled him aside.  
  
"Sirius, can you turn into a dog for me?" I asked innocently. He looked at   
me suspiciously.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because, you can change into a dog faster than I can into a stag, and I want to see what you do." A little flattery goes a very long way. Sirius is really like a dog; he always wants attention, and he whines when he doesn't get it, so any chance to perform is good enough for him. I felt a little guilty about deceiving him like this…but after all, it was for the good of   
society.  
  
"Oh, ok." He happily obliged. I pulled out my razor.  
  
"Look!" I said. "A chocolate crème puff!"  
  
Sirius obediently looked…And changed back into a human.  
  
"I don't see one," he said, looking very disappointed. "What are you doing with that razor?"  
  
"Nothing," I said, as innocently as possible. "I was…shaving. You know. Shaving." I wasn't precisely lying, you know. I was attempting to shave something. The fact that it was supposed to be Sirius didn't need to be mentioned.  
  
"James, you never shave. You don't even have the beginnings of a beard." He was more observant than I thought. I had to throw him off track.  
  
"Lily doesn't like beards," I said defensively. "So I decided to stop it before it started."  
  
Sirius said something that sounded suspiciously like "whipped," and headed for the door. I chucked the razor on the bed. So much for plan number one.  
  
Plan number two came pretty quickly, though. Lily had a cat. Sure, it wasn't a dog, but it was furry, wasn't it? I would unobtrusively sneak into her room, and snip some hair off of her cat. But then I realised that Lily would probably be quite angry with me, if Fluffy suddenly had a couple of big bald patches. So I had to come up with plan number three. Which was, of course, Remus. Sure, he is a big, hairy, slobbery mutt too, but at least he has really pointy teeth. Maybe he could find a way to get some doggy hair. He's much smarter at things like that than Sirius and I are. He is the planner, after all.  
  
I caught him up outside the Great Hall.  
  
"Oy! Moony!"  
  
"What?" He looked more than a little annoyed. He always is slightly edgy in the morning.  
  
"I have a brilliant plan."  
  
"No, you don't," he said, and proceeded to make his way into the Great Hall. Well that was no help at all. And I couldn't exactly tell him my brilliant plan with Sirius sitting right there, looking on. So I shovelled down breakfast, and headed to the library, happier than I usually am in the morning, because it was a weekend, and, everybody knows that Moony spends most of his weekends in the library.  
  
It's embarrassing, really.  
  
But I suppose that's all part of the Moony facade. Sure, he looks like a model student, but since we've finished corrupting his mind, he thinks up great stuff to do.  
  
So I waited…and waited…and waited… before I realised that a whole fifteen minutes had gone by, with no Moony in sight. Perhaps I shouldn't have bolted down breakfast so quickly. I could have at least enjoyed my bacon before I came.  
  
Just as I was thinking that I better go back to the Great Hall, and have another round of breakfast, Moony entered the library. I grabbed him, forced him down into a chair, and explained my brilliant plan.  
  
About a quarter of the way through, Moony put his head in his hands.  
  
Half of the way through, his shoulders were shaking.  
  
When I finished, he appeared to be on the edge of falling out of the chair.  
  
"Moony!" I said in alarm. "I realise that my plan is brilliant, but you don't need to take it that far."  
  
"Good Gad," said Moony, his shoulders shaking some more. "Not another one…"  
  
"Another what, precisely?" I asked. This was not the reaction I expected.  
  
"Did you ever think," he said, "that Sirius might be entitled to his own opinion, just as you are entitled to yours?"  
  
"Well, yes," I said reasonably. "But what if the opinion is wrong?"  
  
"Even if it is," said Moony. "It still is his own opinion."  
  
I turned away in despair. Even Moony was against me. There was only one thing left to do.  
  
Lily's cat, Fluffy, had bald patches on it the next day. She was most upset.  
  
Sirius chatted up the girls like normal, too. And they flirted outrageously with him.  
  
Moony isn't the only one against me, it's the whole world.  
  
That's ok with me. It really is.  
  
Because a plan is going to hit me any day now.  
  
I just know it.  
  
~**~


End file.
